Life's a Stitch

My Creative Life

Recently, Opus Art hosted a challenge, “Your Creative Life,” where artists were invited  to submit a work in progress with an explanation of their approach. It was so nice to receive a message today that my sunflower painting was one of the projects selected. This is a portion of it in progress:

Seeing my name in writing, tagged as a “Watercolour Artist” feels like a dream come true, considering my artist’s  bio starts with “I was an art school reject at the age of 17, when I was told my work was too commercial in style.” I”m grateful, after a satisfying career in non-profit management, to have the opportunity to pursue my art.

 

Where in the world?

 

Judging from the pictures can you guess where we were? Hint: we got brave and took our first flight since the pandemic started. 

 

There were badlands, cactus, sage brush and hoodoos, enough to make you believe we were thousands of kilometres south, when in fact we were a bit northeast of Calgary, in Drumheller, Alberta. It was a glorious 23 degrees (74.3 F). 

It all started the previous week, with Canadian Thanksgiving in AB where we did it by the book. It was a relief not having to Zoom yet another holiday dinner, but was disappointing not to be able to gather with more than M and KC’s household. And don’t let yesterday’s photos fool you, Thanksgiving brought us a smidge of snow. 

 

Being Thanksgiving, food was the highlight. I’ve handed the Turkey baton over to M, so I was only responsible for sweet potato cauliflower mash and gravy. Dessert was from Made by Marcus, their famous pumpkin ice cream pie decorated with torched marshmallows and toasted pumpkin seeds. 

 

The rest of the trip’s meals did not disappoint, given KC’s passion for cooking. The highlight for me was a lesson in making his homemade gnocchi, light potato pillows that melt in your mouth. Now back home, I’ve already made them and they were delicious with chicken cacciatore.

 

What a great souvenir, coming home from travelling with the ability to relive the experience with delicious food. Thank you KC and M.

Slipped my mind

Now what was I going to write about? Who's knows? It was one of those questions about where you fall on a specific topic. Those kinds of things half of those questioned answer one way and half the other, but it's slipped my mind. It must have something to do with how I've been spending my time: knitting, cooking, walking, painting, watching Ted Lasso. Nope, that didn't bring it back. It'll rear it's head around 3:00 a.m. I guarantee it. 

Last night we cooked crabs. C, the lucky fisherman caught four keepers in under an hour.

And here's my recent painting (watercolour 11x14), done from a photo taken in Varadero, Cuba, by local artist and online instructor James Koll. I love the golden hour lighting in it. 

I will let you know when I remember what this blog post was to be about.